‘Cup’ To Award Green Innovation

As part of their effort to spur conservation, the Harvard Green Campus Initiative (HGCI) and the College’s Resource Efficiency Program (REP) have added a new innovation component to their 15th annual Green Cup competition, calling on students to create teams to come up with new ways to save energy.

This contest, sponsored by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Office of Physical Resources, will award a $250 cash prize to two House challenge teams and one Yard team.

In the general competition, the House that leads in energy conservation, recycling, waste production and innovations introduced by challenge teams will win a $1,035 award.

Since its founding in 1990, when the competition was called Ecolympics (it was renamed Green Cup two years later), HGCI has focused mainly on measuring recycling and the energy conservation habits of each House from one year to the next.

According to the Green Cup website, the purpose of the innovation component, established by the addition of challenge teams to the competition, is to encourage undergraduates to form groups to reduce environmental impacts that weren’t quantified by the contest in the past, educate students and generate resources for other environmentally related projects.

Competitions, especially ones that reward creativity, generally allow for major improvements, said Rob Gogan, manager of recycling and waste in the University Operations Services.

Many students leading challenge teams in the competition said that House pride and rivalry motivated them to lead groups aiming to help the environment—not to mention their chance at winning the jackpot.

Currier REP representative Mary Emily Colvin ’05 said that though some of the participants may be motivated more by the cash reward than by helping the environment, the effect is the same.

“The little things people hear can and do make a difference,” she said.

Quincy REP representative Brian A. Matthay ’04 said he thinks that most of the initiatives stem from a combination of interests in money and clean air.

One challenge team from Quincy intends to buy a percentage of the House’s energy from renewable sources, and another plans to put signs on doors to specify desired periodicals and thus reduce doordrops.

Bob T. Elliott ’04 entered the competition on behalf of the Leverett Stein Club, and said he urges partiers to use steins and kegs instead of plastic cups and beer cans. According to Elliott, who said he didn’t realize the competition awarded cash prizes, the club has already sold 65 steins.

Kirkland House resident Sloan J. Eddleston ’04 started an initiative to repair and reuse 46 old bikes that he found in the his House’s basement. He said he wants to increase his and fellow students’ daily efficiency by providing them with “earth-friendly” transportation.

Eddleston said he and the Kirkland REP representative, Sara A. Clark ’04, plan to paint the bikes green to promote clean air.

Gogan said that participation in the competition makes students more aware of their use of resources.

“What gets measured gets managed,” he said.

Gogan, who has presided over the expansion of Harvard’s environmental efforts across the country, from New Hampshire to Utah, said artistic and innovative intervention can have “dramatic effects.”

As of last Thursday, Currier was in first place in the overall Green Cup competition, based on percentage of waste recycling, which “is one of the important criteria used in determining the winner for recycling,” REP coordinator Emily Sadigh wrote in an e-mail. Sadigh said that REP is still working on calculating the energy data, which, like recycling, is based on improvement compared to previous years.

“It’s a small House so it’s easy to get everyone behind the community,” said Colvin.